Comeback Albums

If one is talking about comeback or post-hiatus albums, three albums for me would be absolute favourites. While Bob Dylan’s Nashville Skyline (1969) came after an almost-fatal motorcycle accident, Eric Clapton’s 461 Ocean Boulevard (1974) was his first studio album after he quit heroin and George Harrison’s Cloud Nine (1987) after a five year break from songwriting.

All three are peculiar for a sea change in the kind of music each of these artists made prior to these albums. Although Clapton continues the same blues-rock style that he followed in his previous Layla... venture, 461... offers more variety in the form of an unlikely cover of Bob Marley’s reggae “I Shot The Sheriff” and his pleading self-composition “Let It Grow”.

Dylan collaborated with Johnny Cash to come up with a sparkling country rock album in Nashville Skyline. He sounds refreshingly different in the album, much softer and less smoky. The sound of the album is relaxed and the length just over 25 minutes; it’s almost as though he’s not trying to make a serious record at all. But it brings everything together beautifully with the power still there in his lyric, and there being various emotions written about at the same time. The emphasis though is still on romance with tracks like “Lay Lady Lay” and “Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You”.

Harrison’s Cloud 9 is probably Harrison’s rebirth after albums like Somewhere in England and Gone Troppo. The album sound is remarkable and markedly different from his earlier albums with Jeff Lynne’s (Electric Light Orchestra) great contribution in production. The tracks have a light pop-rock feel, are pepped up, but there is still no compromise on the guitar work. There is nostalgia (“When We Was Fab” takes you back to those Beatles years) and love (“Cloud 9”, “Got My Mind Set on You”). And there’s lyrical genius in “Wreck of the Hesperus”.

Derek and the Dominos: Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs (1970)

It's been a long break - almost a six month one. And yours truly has been going through various blues-rock albums. Mostly dominated by Clapton and his various bands. He's been watching concerts and relishing newly acquired albums. But one that needs a special mention is this - Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, being the only work by the Derek and the Dominos (the Dominos being Bobby Whitlock, Jim Gordon and Carl Radle). An album with exceptional guitar work by guest Duane Allman (who plays the slide in most tracks) and 'Derek' Clapton, it'll take atleast six runs to settle down in you. But boy, once it does, you'll love every bit of it. Typical blues-rock that way. Not quite the catchiest tunes, but then, isn't that what most blues is about? It has an impressive tracklist, mostly Whitlock-Clapton compositions. And intermittently featuring some really good covers, like 'Little Wing' (being a tribute to its creator, Jimi Hendrix), 'Key to the Highway' (written by Charles Segar and Willie Bronzy in the mid 1940s) and 'Nobody Knows When You're Down and Out' (written by Jimmie Cox, which later became one of Clapton's favourites to perform - it can also be found on his Unplugged album).
In sum, a great album, which would make you wonder why it didn't top the charts when it was released. And then everytime you finish the album, you would wish that Derek and the Dominos had produced more albums. But then, Derek had caught up both with heroin and the heroine soon thereafter.

Must watch out for:
"I Am Yours" (Track 5)
"Anyday" (Track 6)

Complete Clapton (2007)

God forbid, if I was asked to part with all the music I have, save one album, I would keep this. This would probably last me a lifetime. Bettering over his previous versatile compilation The Cream of Clapton (1995), this autobiographical compilation contains everything that is Clapton, and probably more. In terms of sheer range, Complete Clapton stretches from rock to blues. In terms of expression, it ranges from unrequited love to romance to separation; exploring themes like faith and justice on the way. The album begins with five consecutive Cream tracks, essentially hard rock or psychedelic rock, and gradually gets bluer and denser.

Containing all the popular Clapton tracks like “Layla”, “Cocaine”, “My Father’s Eyes”, “Change the World”, which have become cult tracks, it's a pleasure to listen to beautiful and lesser heard tracks like “Miss You”, “Pretending” and “It’s In The Way You Use It”. But, the tracks to watch out for are “Bell Bottom Blues”, supposedly written by Clapton for Pattie Boyd (yes, as usual), and his covers of Robert Hicks classic “Motherless Child” and of Robert Johnson’s famous “If I Had Possession Over Judgment Day”.

See: Track Listing.

Jethro Tull: Thick as a Brick (1972)

Thick as a Brick, (Jethro Tull, 1972) is not just one of the best works of Jethro Tull as a band (peaked No.1 on U.S. Billboard Pop Albums Chart), but one of the most unique albums I have come across as well. It comes in a phase in Jethro Tull's life when they're at their peak after a successful Aqualung, and definitely marking a transition into the progressive rock genre, hints of which can be seen from Stand Up (1969) itself.
Being a concept album, it consists of a single track, spanning just under 44 minutes (and the album being progressive in that sense as well), with a vast range of sounds, as Ian Anderson himself says, "sometimes lifting, sometimes soaring". It is most well-known perhaps for its innovation in having a mock newspaper entitled "St. Cleve Chronicle" as an LP cover which help one to get a hint to the extremely complex and mind-boggling lyrics penned by a prodigious eight-year old Gerald Bostock who features on the front page of the "Chronicle" (actually an incarnation of Ian Anderson himself). The lyrics and the sound scheme is extremely complex, and no theme can be pinpointed, like it can be in Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon or The Wall or The Who's Tommy or Jethro Tull's own most celebrated album Aqualung. It is possibly simply a hodgepodge of the themes dealt with in all the above works.
Possibly, it is an attack on everything mainstream, which is indicated by the first lines: "My words but a whisper - your deafness a shout. I may make you feel but I can't make you think." - beginning with mainstream attitudes towards children to art to war. The words are typically Anderson, reminiscent of Aqualung and Stand Up, full of satire, challenging the mainstream throughout the epic with effects such as "See there! A son is born…". Not only is "The St. Cleve Chronicle" a must read for its cleverness, the album is a must hear for the range in variations in a single track never heard before, impressive jamming in between, all united by the signature Anderson flute. And of course,
"So you ride yourselves over the fields and
You make all your animal deals and
Your wise men don't know how it feels to be thick as a brick."

Exceptional. Wholesome. Complete. Satiating.

See also:
Thick as a Brick lyrics.
The 12-page St. Cleve Chronicle.

Bob Dylan: My Back Pages

I think this ought to have come up here a long long time ago, considering I'd been listening to this same track over fifty times each day during my exams.
The song, "My Back Pages" first appeared during Dylan's golden period in the album Another Side of Bob Dylan (1964), in a simpler very typical Dylan harmonica-acoustic version, with him reciting and not singing the song.
But the version that's got to be one of the best and most complete tracks ever is found in the 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration (1993), performed by various artists.
Apart from the famous guitar riff by Clapton in the middle, the track is exceptional as it brings together Tom Petty, Roger McGuinn (of The Byrds), Neil Young (of Pearl Jam fame), George Harrison and Bob Dylan himself to sing the magical words of My Back Pages, which becomes an anthemic tune, and one of the few songs which one can listen to in any sort of mood. Although there are quite a few well-covered songs of Dylan in the album, this stands out, and is bound to make the listener open his eyes wide and appreciate the magic of Dylan's songwriting every single time.

Must see:
My Back Pages Lyrics.
The Concert version.

Various Artists - A Tribute to Stevie Ray Vaughan (1996)

According to some (here), tribute albums are mostly collections of roundly uninspired versions of the dead artist’s songs and these albums are either ignored and/or quickly forgotten, or spur a revival in the artist’s music that he won’t be around to enjoy or profit from them. Clearly, a brother’s initiative seems to be an exception. When SRV died in a helicopter crash in 1990 at 35 years, he was already one of the greatest blues guitarists to have been born. Jimmie, elder brother-cum-SRV’s tutor and greatest influence, co-wrote a eulogy, “Six Strings Down” for not only SRV, but also other blues guitarists like Jimi Hendrix, Albert Collins, Muddy Waters, Lightning Hopkins, T-Bone Walker and Albert King. The tribute features an ensemble cast of blues musicians – B.B. King, Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy, Robert Cray, Art Neville, Bonnie Raitt and Dr. John, who come together and perform “Tick Tock”, a 'Nutopian' track that first featured in Family Style (Vaughan Brothers, 1990) and at the end of the album, “SRV Shuffle”, which won the Grammy in 1997 for Best Rock Instrumental Performance.
Truly, an unforgettable tribute!



Related:
Raucous version of "Six Strings Down" at the Crossroads Guitar Festival, 2004.
Sample of "Tick Tock".

Highway 61 Revisited

Choosing the first subject wasn't easy, but I guess in the current mood, it is appropriate to select this one.

Personally, one of my favourite Bob Dylan albums, Highway 61 Revisited, released in 1965, and the recordings churned out in a remarkable span of six days, contains some of the most angsty and bitter lyrics. Named after the New Orleans-Memphis-Iowa highway, popularly also called the "Blues Highway", because of its association with various other legends like Robert Johnson and Bessie Smith, it came in a phase of Dylan's life when he was widely criticized to be shifting towards more 'electric' rock and roll and more commercial music, instead of the more "honest" folk music, which he started off with. He silenced all these doubts and criticisms with this landmark album (ranked No. 4 by the Rolling Stones). With vitriolic songs such as "Like a Rolling Stone" and "Ballad of a Thin Man", that sting becomes more mixed with longing and concern in "Queen Jane Approximately" and "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry", and the brilliantly melodic rock and roll compositions of "Tombstone Blues" and "From a Biuck 6", the folk feel is retained in "Highway 61 Revisited". Although "Like a Rolling Stone" has been the most talked about track for its "vomitific" lyrics, whopping length and that accusatory and finger-pointing "How does it feel?", the greatest song according to the Rolling Stones magazine, which featured in this album after being released as a single shortly earlier, I think a relatively underrated but must-listen track is "The Ballad of a Thin Man", which appears in a very interesting context in the movie I'm Not There and has the same sort of mocking-at-the-helpless tone. With the concealed romance in "Desolation Row", one gets a hint of what lies in store for us in the next album, another legendary album called Blonde on Blonde.

Related:
Bob Dylan performing "Like a Rolling Stone" live.
Jimi Hendrix Cover of "Like a Rolling Stone".
The Rolling Stones music video of "Like a Rolling Stone".
"Ballad of a Thin Man" in I'm Not There (2007) - performed by Stephen Malkmus & The Million Dollar Bashers.
Johnny Winter cover of "Highway 61 Revisited".
Tombstone Blues lyrics.